Generally, a vial is labeled prior to its use. However, sometimes the vial is mislabeled, i.e., the wrong label is attached to the vial, or more than one label is attached and cannot be read, or the label is wrinkled in some fashion, or some other defect occurs. In any event, the label needs to be removed. While the label can be removed manually, such effort is slow because generally the label is attached to the vial with an adhesive or via some other holding means. The manual effort is also tedious because the vial must be made relatively clean to insure that proper attachment is obtained during the subsequent relabeling step.
Further complicating the removal of the label is that often the vial is filled with a material. And if the material is e.g., a medical liquid, it cannot be exposed to heat which would spoil the liquid. Use of heat could prove advantageous in that if the temperature of the label were raised to about or above the melting point of the adhesive, if used, the label could be removed more easily. However, heat sometimes has the disadvantage of causing the label to become tacky, further complicating its removal.
Still further complicating the removal of the label is that often the contained material can have a relatively high economic value. Thus, care needs to be taken so as not to break the vial. In addition, often the material can be harmful in some manner and thus breakage could cause harm to the person manually removing the label.
Because of the necessary physical properties of the material that makes it useful as a label, the label is inherently difficult to remove cleanly. For example, the label is generally made of rather strong, tear resistant material such as a polyester film.
The foregoing problems have been overcome by the use of a novel collet-cutter described hereinafter along with the disclosed method and apparatus.